


Vibrant Futures

by samariumwriting



Series: Fire Emblem Trans Week [6]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Past Character Death, Pride, Trans Characters, past angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25429288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: The Blue Lions Bookshop go to pride. For some of them, it's been a long time.-“Okay! Let’s run a checklist. What do we have with us?”“Glitter,” Dimitri said, with a smile at his lap full of bright, sparkling, Annette-would-be-finding-it-in-her-hair-for-weeks glitter.“Flags!” Sylvain said, holding his neatly folded bundle of eight into the air.“And a fuck ton of books,” Felix finished, gesturing towards the boxes behind all the seats.
Series: Fire Emblem Trans Week [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1833433
Comments: 11
Kudos: 27
Collections: Fire Emblem Trans Week 2020!





	Vibrant Futures

**Author's Note:**

> My sixth piece for FE trans week (@fetransweek on twitter), following the prompts of found family and pride! This was a whole bunch of fun so I hope you enjoy it too

When the newly renamed Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd was thirteen, he went to a pride parade with his friends for the first time.

By the time he was fourteen, the name no longer felt new, but there was no pride to celebrate that. Only a funeral, half-shattered friendships, and a grief that felt like almost too much to bear.

They didn’t go to pride that year, or the next, or the one after that. Eventually, the idea that made that first summer afternoon so exciting, so intoxicating, vanished from sight. They all tried not to think about it again.

* * *

“Good morning, Sylvain!” Annette called, knocking three times on Sylvain’s door and waiting for him to groan before she opened it. “It’s pride day! You need to get up.”

“Five more minutes?” Sylvain asked, knowing full well that when he asked for that Annette was completely aware that he meant fifteen.

“Not a chance,” she replied, and he moaned again. He was always the hardest to get out of bed, even on a day like today when they  _ needed _ to get going on time. If they didn’t, they’d never beat the traffic.

“You’re a demon,” Sylvain said, crying out in indignation when Annette threw the curtains open. “I swear I didn’t sin last night. Well, not much.”

Annette stuck her tongue out at him. “I did not need to know that,” she said. “But  _ you _ need to get out of bed, sir, so go on. Up you get!”

“Don’t you have to get the others up?” Sylvain asked hopefully, almost pouting up at her. Unfortunately, he was correct.

“If you're not up in the next few minutes, I’m coming in again with Ingrid, and  _ she  _ can use ice magic.” Sylvain winced at the thought, and Annette shot him a satisfied grin as she made her way out of his bedroom and down the hall to her next stop.

“Dimitri?” she called, knocking a little more gently this time. When she heard him stir, she cracked the door open. “Are you on your way up?” Sometimes, Dimitri was easy to get out of bed. Sometimes, he’d had more trouble getting  _ into _ bed in the first place. Today looked to be closer to the latter.

“I can be,” he said. “My apologies, Annette, I hope I haven’t overslept and I’m so sorry to-”

“Nope!” Annette said, cutting him off with a smile that Dimitri returned with more than a hint of relief. “I’m doing my rounds now. I’ll get Dedue to put some coffee on for you if you want?”

“No need,” Dimitri replied, pushing back the covers. Goddess, he was so much easier to get out of bed than Sylvain. “I can do it myself, I won’t be a minute. How much should I make?”

Annette thought of the empty house as she made her way back towards the door. “Plenty,” she said, and Dimitri returned her laugh. “I think we’ll need it.”

From there, she dragged Ingrid out of bed by opening her window and ignoring her grumbles of protest - she’d be up soon enough. Dedue was next, fairly easy to get awake but slow to rise. Mercedes, too, was easy to get up; she could always be enticed out of bed with the promise of breakfast and the day to come.

Second to last was Ashe, who was already awake when Annette entered. That, at least, wasn’t a surprise - his head was buried in a book, as always, and the reminder he needed wasn’t to get up but to get onto all the other things that needed to be done before they left.

Finally came Felix. Annette had barely even knocked on his door before she heard him get out of bed, and by the time she’d  _ left _ the room he already had a shirt on. “Will there be coffee?” he asked, his voice barely louder than a groan. He may have been easy to get up, but he sure wasn’t raring to go.

“Dimitri’s making some,” she said with a smile, breezing out of the room to get started on the next task. The boxes had all been packed and loaded into the van in advance, but there were still plenty of things to prepare: sandwiches to make, bottles of water to fill, and social media posts to draft.

It took a while, interrupted frequently by various members of the household rushing past - why Ingrid hadn’t prepared her pride outfit in advance was beyond Annette, but she clearly couldn’t find the orange shorts she may or may not have put in the wash.

In the end, despite Annette’s meticulous planning and scheduling, they ended up without enough time for breakfast. Instead, Mercedes fetched a packet of (rainbow) paper plates and gently herded all of them into the van to eat Ashe and Dedue’s perfect cooked breakfast.

“Who’s driving?” Felix asked, sausage half hanging out of his mouth. There was a hopeful look in his eyes.

“Mercedes,” the rest of them chorused. Between the eight of them, three had licenses, but Dimitri’s single eye was less than ideal for dealing with heavy traffic, and Felix…

Felix would not be driving the van.

“Okay!” Ashe chimed in, once the now-greasy paper plates were collected up and shoved to the side for whoever drew the short straw on cleaning up the van once they got back in the evening. “Let’s run a checklist. What do we have with us?”

“Glitter,” Dimitri said, with a smile at his lap full of bright, sparkling, Annette-would-be-finding-it-in-her-hair-for-weeks glitter.

“Flags!” Sylvain said, holding his neatly folded bundle of eight into the air.

“And a fuck ton of books,” Felix finished, gesturing towards the boxes behind all the seats.

“Perfect,” Ashe said. “Well, I think we can relax, then. At least until we get there.”

Almost immediately, the conversation drifted. “So, when was everyone’s first pride?” Annette asked. It was hard to believe that there were still things she didn’t know about her family - it felt like she’d known them much longer than she actually had.

“Oh, I’ll go first!” Mercedes said with a smile. “I went to my first pride with my church group. I can’t say they really understood what it meant, but they were all very lovely about it. My local pride was very small, really, so it was just a nice event.

“Since then, a small group from my church have gone every year. They mostly helped out with any first aid that was needed, and it maybe wasn’t the largest contribution, but...it was nice to see anyway. I think they still go.”

“Aww, that’s really sweet of them,” Ashe replied. “What about you, Annette?”

“Oh, my first pride was with Mercie!” she said with a grin. “When we were at the Academy in Fhirdiad together. It was my first chance, because I was away from home for the first time, so I was super nervous. Actually, I wasn’t even going to go, bu-”

“I insisted, of course,” Mercedes said. “I couldn’t leave Annie there on her own when she clearly wanted to come with us. There was quite a big group from our school, so it just made sense for her to come along.”

“It was a shock,” Annette said with a chuckle. “I was from a pretty small town, so seeing all those people...it was like, woah, I’m  _ really _ not alone here. It was great.”

Dedue smiled. “By the contrary, my first pride was very small,” he said. “There was one in a town just a short way from my village back in Duscur, and I went with my whole family.”

“Your  _ whole _ family?” Dimitri asked, “Including your parents?”

“Yes,” Dedue replied. “The first time we went was with my older sister, who’s a lesbian. She wasn’t all that old, so my parents didn’t want her going off on her own. I suppose they also wanted to show her that we were with her and supported her.

“Within a year, I was out as well,” he recounted, a small, fond smile on his face. “I went with the rest of them for several years, it’s always a family event. I don’t live there anymore, but they send me photos of it each year.”

“Ooh, can I see?” Annette asked, moving to get out of her seat to get a glimpse at the photos. Dedue’s family were always so corny and adorable. Before she could even get up, however, Mercedes shot her a look in the rear view mirror, and she flopped back into her seat. Meanie.

“Later, perhaps,” Dedue said, and Mercedes nodded approvingly.

“Can I go next?” Ashe asked, effectively turning everyone’s attention away from Annette’s desire to put family pictures before safety. “My first pride was an accident,” he announced proudly. “I was running errands for someone, just to earn a little money, and-”

“Was this the drug dealer job?” Sylvain cut in.

Ashe sighed. “Yes, Sylvain, it was the drug dealer job. That’s not the point, though. The point is that I ended up in the middle of a parade I didn't know was happening and just sort of...stuck around?”

“That sounds fun,” Ingrid said, and Ashe nodded, his eyes alight. 

“It was great,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t know I was trans at the time, but I had an inkling about sexuality and it was a great experience. Even if I did end up running late for that errand.”

As he finished his tale, everyone’s eyes fell onto the remaining four who hadn’t shared just yet. Sylvain looked at Ingrid, who looked at Felix, whose eyes fell on Dimitri. “We went together years ago,” he said, eventually. “It takes a bit of explaining.”

* * *

The four of them bunched together a little as the parade began to move - a huge cheer went up around them, and music began to play. Dimitri twisted his head round for a moment to catch sight of his father and Rodrigue, waving them off.

They were only allowed to go on their own like this because Sylvain had volunteered to come with them, and the couple of years he had on the rest of them made all the difference. He kept adjusting the straps of his rucksack (packed full of water bottles and food, of course), making sure anyone who might catch sight of them could see the ‘proud straight ally’ text emblazoned on his shirt.

Next to Dimitri was Ingrid, whose bi flag had arrived just in time for her to tie it around her shoulders for the parade. She looked a little nervous, but she shot Dimitri a smile as they walked.

Dimitri returned it with a much wider one, his eyes darting all around them. He shifted his own trans flag on his shoulders, which felt so much lighter here. People  _ understood _ him. They could see the pronoun badge pinned to his shirt and the flag tied around him and they’d get it, more than anyone at school did.

The sun was bright, and it lit up all the colours around him. Flags, rainbows, hats, glitter, sunlight glinting off sunglasses and every face split into a smile.

At least, almost every face. Eventually (maybe after too long, all things considered), Dimitri’s gaze fell on the last friend in their group. Dressed more simply than everyone else, with a bi flag and slightly hunched shoulders...

In hindsight, Dimitri wished he’d known. Wished he’d  _ asked _ , talked about it, tried to work out why the fourth member of their party lagged behind a little and didn’t wear a smile. But he didn’t ask, they didn’t talk about it, and Felix didn’t get that teenage experience of being understood in the same way Dimitri did.

* * *

“Oh, I see!” Mercedes said, once Dimitri’s story was done. “Well, I’m sure this one will be much better. Has it really been that long since you all went to pride?” Ingrid nodded. “Well, we’re nearly there,” she continued, “so go on. Let’s get out there and be proud, alright?”

And they did just as she suggested. This time, their group was larger, more colourful. Sylvain had the rainbow flag he knew fit him better all along, and Ingrid’s bi flag was replaced with pinks and oranges. There were no onlookers to see them off, but the hole they left behind was filled with a new family, precious and irreplaceable.

They marched, loud and proud and completely  _ themselves _ , until the parade reached its destination. From there, all that was left to do was set up for the rest of the afternoon. The Blue Lions Bookshop had an established presence at Fhirdiad pride, though the family that ran it were considerably larger that year than the previous one.

It was the most business they ever saw on a single day, at any point in the year, and it was full of talking to people who may otherwise never have heard of all the books they’d brought. Ashe spoke to a young man about gay knight’s tales, while Mercedes shared her thoughts with an older couple on lesbian spaces within nunneries.

There probably was no perfect afternoon, no ideal event, but this seemed pretty close. Even as the day ended, with everyone a little frazzled and completely exhausted, there were nothing but smiles being passed around.

There was a vibrancy to the day, to the memories that accompanied it, that would not dull with time. It shone far brighter than that summer of ages past, eclipsing awkward, untold truths with the warmth and light of optimism for all the years to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment, and I have a twitter @samariumwriting where I talk about fic stuff pretty regularly
> 
> For anyone curious about the lgbt hcs in this piece (which has a whole au in my head which only slightly peeks through here):  
> Ashe - trans + bi, he/him  
> Annette - trans + pan, she/her  
> Mercedes - trans + bi + ace, she/her  
> Dedue - trans + gay, he/they  
> Ingrid - nb lesbian, she/they  
> Felix - trans + pan + ace, he/him  
> Dimitri - trans + gay, he/him  
> Sylvain - gay (and the token cis), he/him


End file.
